Dominick Dunne

About the show

No one knows the dark side of the rich and famous better than Dominick Dunne. The consummate insider and relentless crusader, Dunne chronicles the arrogance that leads the rich to believe they are above the law. A best-selling author and celebrated columnist for Vanity Fair, Dunne will rivet you with his selection of notorious cases that uncover the lowest depths of high society.

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Upcoming episodes

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Aug 15th

300p

The Waitress and the Millionaire

Wealthy 70-yr-old TV Exec, Stephen Beard is murdered in Austin, TX. His wife, a 32-yr-old former Country Club Waitress, is arrested two years after he dies and is accused of conspiring with her female lover, Tracey Tarlton to kill her wealthy husband. At trial, Tarlton turns on her lover and Beard is sent to prison for life.

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Aug 16th

300p

Blood Money

On the morning of July 9, 1985 in Naples, FL, the car carrying millionaire tobacco heiress Margaret Benson, her daughter Carol Lynn, and her 21-year-old adopted son Scott exploded; only Carol Lynn survived. The police focus their investigation on Steven, Benson's eldest son, who was only yards away from the explosion. He stood to inherit nearly $10 million of the family’s fortune. In August, 1986, after a sensational murder trial, Steven Benson, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

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Aug 17th

300p

Island Obsession

In this episode of Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilege and Justice the body of Australian businessman and jetsetter, Dale Pike, washes up on a Miami beach in 1998. A series of clues lead investigators to piece together the story: Pike had flown to Miami to meet with Enrico Forti, a man he believed was attempting to defraud his father, who ran a resort hotel in Ibizia, Spain. After a month-long trial Forti is convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.

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Aug 20th

300p

Freefall

Andrew C. Thornton III, gets caught up in his unopened parachute and dies on impact in the driveway of an astonished Tennessee homeowner. The plot thickens when cops discover $15milion in cocaine strapped to his body. This episode of Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilege and Justice examines the parallel life that Andrew Thornton led. Thornton and his two friends from childhood – all three from privileged Kentucky society families, – emerge as the kingpins of “The Company” - a drug smuggling ring. They used their positions of power (two are cops, one works in the governor’s office) and their soldier-of-fortune skills to run weapons to Columbia where they were exchanged for drugs. They were enormously successful until their association with Las Vegas mobsters made them vulnerable to federal investigation and they were ultimately busted.

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Aug 21st

300p

Family Secrets

Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilege and Justice examines the murder of miserly Salt Lake City millionaire, Franklin Bradshaw, who was found dead, shot 3 times with a .357 Magnum. There doesn’t seem to be a motive as Bradshaw had apparently made no enemies in business. Investigators begin to speculate that it was a robbery gone wrong. But then the authorities’ attention is drawn to Bradshaw’s own family – in particular his spoiled daughter Frances and her son, Marc. Frances had been living the high life in Manhattan But when it looked like her lavish lifestyle and snobbery was going to get her cut out of her father’s will, she took matters into her own hands – she asked one of her sons to kill his own grandfather, Franklin Bradshaw, before he could change the will . And the boy did as mother asked. “You don’t say ‘no’ to mom,” he told authorities.

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Aug 22nd

300p

Murder He Wrote

On December 9, 2001, the body of Kathleen Peterson, the wife of politician and novelist Michael Peterson, is found at the bottom of a staircase in their Durham, NC home. Although her death is initially thought to have been the result of a fall, a postmortem examination concludes that her injuries are from repeated blows to the head. Michael Peterson immediately falls under suspicion…suspicion that only intensifies when it is discovered that, years earlier, a female friend of his had died as a result of similar injuries. Michael Peterson is found guilty after a three month trial that features 65 witnesses, and more than 800 pieces of evidence.

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Aug 23rd

300p

Death Of a Beauty King

In this episode of Power, Privilege and Justice, Dominick Dunne examines the dark and treacherous side of family business. Dean Milo grew up to be an attractive, business savvy, ladies man who turned a small company into a $50 million dollar corporation. When his demanding mother and less successful brother, Fred, are stripped of their power, family tension starts to mount. Then Milo is gunned down in his palatial Ohio home and, at first, investigators discover many people with motives. They arrest 10 suspects including an angry lover, business men, and jealous family members. But soon it becomes clear that the murder was motivated by greed and family jealousy.

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Aug 24th

300p

What Price, Murder ?

Joel Sandler was a self-made millionaire. Investing heavily in real estate and the stock market in the late 80’s, he amassed a fortune and purchased a mansion in the ritzy Main-Line suburbs of Philadelphia. But as his bank account grew so did an obsession to maintain his wealth at all costs. Insisting that his wife Linda shop only with coupons, heating just one room of their vast mansion during the winter and resorting to shoplifting, Joel Sandler maintained his fortune one penny at a time. But after enduring years of physical abuse at the hands of her husband when she failed to follow his strict financial rules, in 1998 Linda Sandler finally fled. Unwilling to part with even a portion of his beloved money in a divorce, Joel Sandler attempted to hire a hit-man to eliminate Linda. But the man Sandler offered $25,000 to kill his wife was not a gun for hire… he was an undercover police officer. Joel Sandler’s arrest and trial set off a media frenzy, and brought shock and scandal to Philadelphia’s wealthiest neighborhood.

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Aug 27th

300p

The Trophy Wife and the Tennis Pro

Werner Hartmann was the “Stereo King of Chicago.” He had built a retail empire and had the lifestyle to match. But one night his wife returns to their mansion and discovers her husband’s bloody body on the floor of the master bath. She races to the police station and tells the detective on duty: “My husband...I think its suicide. His body’s covered with blood in the bathroom....” When investigators get to the house, they see that Werner Hartmann had taken a dozen shots above the waist from a Mac 10 machine pistol. They would also learn that Hartmann’s life in the months leading up to the murder was a mess.

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Aug 28th

300p

Shoot-Out In Bel-Air

In a Sunset Boulevard mansion in Bel Air, millionaire Henry Harrison Kyle, the president of Four Star International, a television-and-movie-production firm, is found fatally shot in the back. Kyle’s 22 year old son Ricky has a history of problems and immediately becomes the focus of the murder investigation. While he claims that an intruder killed his father, witnesses say that Ricky had confided in them about a longstanding desire to kill his father, who was alleged to have been physically and mentally abusive to his son. The prosecution argued that Ricky was consumed with hatred for his father and greed for his fortune, and that, fearing that he was about to be disinherited he plotted the ruse of the prowler.